


and if it takes forever, forever it'll be

by wheezyboys



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017 NHL Entry Draft, Established Relationship, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Valentine's Day, acrostic poems that aren't poems, the great mcstrome tragedy as a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:34:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13673400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheezyboys/pseuds/wheezyboys
Summary: “Doesn’t the Devils' superstar have anything better to do than mark up our rookies?” Claude asks.Nolan flushes and pulls his under armour on quickly. If this is what they say about his neck, he wonders what they’ll say about all the marks further down.(Nico thinks it’s hilarious, because of course he does).(Or; The love story following the great 2017 NHL draft)





	and if it takes forever, forever it'll be

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [~insert something meaningful here~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354398) by [watashi_no_akuma_to_notatakai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/watashi_no_akuma_to_notatakai/pseuds/watashi_no_akuma_to_notatakai). 



> if you found this looking up your name, or the name of someone you know, you know, just peel out. this is all fiction and at the cause of listening to love songs on repeat at midnight.  
> shoutout to soph for being a g and also m'girl for telling me it is 11/10 the gayest ever
> 
> dates are kind of relevant???? picture me looking at the schedule and screaming bc that's what happened
> 
> also yo this formatting is a lil fucked up but i dont know why???? and i cant figure it out so pls bear with me and the large spacing

**V** is for vulnerable, the way that Nolan refuses to call Nico for days, maybe even a week after he gets hurt. He’s sure someone is updating Nico, but that doesn’t stop the other boy from making the trip from New Jersey to Philly one afternoon.

  
Nolan opens up the door in the same pair of sweatpants he’d been wearing all week. He’s been basically stuck in a dark room, so who was going to judge him for his clothing choices when they can’t even see them?

  
Nico looks at him like he’s just found a crying kitten and it makes Nolan’s teeth hurt how much he hates it. He almost closes the door on him, but Nico pushes his way into the apartment, and pulls Nolan close, kicking the door shut behind them.

  
“I just wish you’d talk to me,” he says, pushing his fingers into Nolan's growing hair.

  
“I hate feeling weak,” Nolan wants to say. Instead he grips the fabric of Nico's hoodie tight, and pushes his face into the other boy's neck.

  
“I’m never going to judge you, Nol,” Nico continues.

  
“I just hate feeling weak,” Nolan finally says.

  
The pads of Nico’s thumbs are soft on his cheeks when the tears start to roll.

  
It’s a lot easier to be stuck in a dark room when you’ve got someone’s heartbeat to keep you company.

  
(For the record, Nico doesn’t say anything about the sweats.)

  
  
**A** is for almost abandoning the whole thing after a long night. The night starts off nice, but progresses to conversation about telling others. Nico’s ready. Nolan isn’t sure he is.

  
(He is in the way he wants the world to know that he’s in love with the most beautiful boy and the most beautiful boys loves him back, but he’s not ready to open himself that side of himself up to show the world.)

  
Nico says that’s alright, and kisses Nolan’s knuckles, but it makes his stomach twist.

  
He doesn’t want to be holding Nico back.

  
If Nico is ready to take this step, he should, and Nolan shouldn’t be the one keeping him in place. When he voices these thoughts, Nico gets rightfully upset.

  
It starts off as bickering, on their own sides of the bed, about how Nolan is definitely not holding Nico back, and how Nico is allowed to make his own choices.

  
It peaks at raised voices on opposite sides of the room. Nico says he’d never leave Nolan behind. Nolan says they’re only teenagers, as if that’s a valid point. The room is silenced as Nico stares at him.

  
(It isn’t a valid point, but Nico knows what he means.

  
Nobody wants to end up like McDavid and Strome.

  
You hear the stories of the 2015 draft, teens young and in love, but first picks have the world on their shoulders and they don’t have time for love.

  
To the public’s eye, they’re still friends, but liked pictures on Instagram does not mean a relationship and the wide smile on Dylan’s face doesn’t mean he’s not hurting from being left behind.

  
At least they had the benefit of years in Erie before this.

  
Nico and Nolan have hardly discovered each other yet.)

  
It ends with soft apologies, sat side by side on the disgusting carpet of the hotel. They agree instead to tell their teammates and family that they’re seeing someone instead, and when Nolan drops that it’s a guy, Nico only sends about a million exclamation points at the text of good news.

 

  
**L** is for long distance. Well, it’s not that long of a distance, only about an hour and a half in a car in some good traffic, but that distance seems so much longer right now.

  
The flyers had a good game, no scratch that, they had a great game and Nolan might’ve scored a goal and had some good assists, either way, they’re at home, in a bar and Nolan is being funnelled drinks against everyone’s better judgement and Nico is texting him.

  
It started off innocent congratulations, but to be fair, tequila doesn’t taste that bad and Nolan had a pretty good game, okay?

  
Now Nolan is in a booth next to Simmonds and he’s turning an impossibly deeper shade of red than usual.

  
That hour and a half drive is a lot longer of a distance when Nico feels like being a little shit.

  
Nolan is in the middle of looking up how long it would take him to walk to his boyfriend’s apartment when Claude pats him on the back and tells him they’re heading out.

  
He’s kind of glad for the distance the next morning, so Nico doesn’t have to see him as the hungover mess he is, but his heart still aches for those 103 kilometres every night.

 

  
**E** is for the expired milk they almost put in their kraft dinner. Nolan was a bit scandalized when he found out Nico had never tasted the neon-orange-noodle-dish, especially when he’s on a team with Taylor Hall so they had plucked a box off the shelf and started to boil the water.

  
Everything was basically made when Nolan tells Nico to grab milk and pour “about a shot, but a little more”, into the pot. It takes everything in him not to gag when he watches a chunk come out.

  
“What the fuck, Nico?” He asks.

  
Nico looks at the carton then looks at the calendar confused.

  
“When did it become the nineteenth?”

  
Nolan shakes his head and flicks a drying noodle at him, laughing when he sticks to his cheek.

  
Nico gives him a look of disbelief and plucks it off his face.

  
“You’re disgusting.”

  
Nolan flicks another, just missing Nico, sticking to the wall behind him. Nolan snickers when Nico crosses his arms over his chest.

  
“Yeah,” he says, “but you love me.”

  
The words made Nolan’s heart stutter in the way it does before he steps on the ice. He doesn’t have much time to think on it, though, apparently love means nothing in a noodle fight. When Taylor comes home with milk to find the kitchen covered, he can only sigh and hope they’re tucked somewhere private instead of on the living room couch again.

  
He really wants to watch his DVR’d Chopped episodes tonight.

 

  
**N** is for napping curled around each other, before and after feelings were even a thing.

  
It’s not a known public fact that Nico Hischier is an octopus in bed, but Nolan can vouch that he is. He was almost sure he was going to be spooned to death the first time he woke up, covered in blankets, wearing layers upon layers, with a Swiss boy who runs hot pressed right against his back. He wanted to try and wiggle free, but Nico’s grip was too tight. Instead, he pulled his arms out of the sleeves of his hoodie and tried to shimmy down the bed, and out of the sweater. He almost makes it, until he gets caught on a couple blankets, and ends up rolling over the edge of the bed, taking the comforter and most of the sheets with him.

  
He twists out of the hoodie and looks up to see Nico looking at him blearily over the edge of the bed.

  
“Why are you on floor?” He asks, voice dripping with sleep, his accent heavier than in the later hours of the day.

  
“I didn’t want to wake you up,” Nolan answers.

  
Nico lets out a low laugh and pulls the blankets back on the bed. He says nothing else before curling up, and falling back asleep.

  
Nolan strips out of his hoodie, fills a cup with water and chugs it down before crawling back into bed. When he wakes up, Nico’s got a respectable arm tossed around his waist, but they’ve both learned to turn the AC on before falling asleep.

   
  
**T** is for talking on the phone for hours every night, like young high school sweethearts in love. They aren’t in high school anymore, but they’re still teenagers, and they’re in love so that’s got to count for something.

  
Sometimes conversations aren’t really conversations, sometimes after a long day they call each other just to hear the other’s even breathing, just to know that they’re there.

  
Sometimes conversations are boring blabber just to fill up time.

  
Sometimes conversations is quiet reassurances from either party, telling the other exactly what they need to hear to get through the night.

  
Sometimes conversations are quiet things whispered under sheets, behind locked doors until they tired each other out.

  
Most of the time conversations last until the early morning hours, until it’ll hurt to wake up the next morning.

  
Nolan receives a series of texts from an unknown number one day reading:

  
**ok thats it im cutting u guys off @ 1**

 **  
** **he’s 19!!! he shouldnt be napping at three in the afternoon on a day off**

  
A picture of Nico follows. He’s totally passed out, mouth open, head hanging on someone’s shoulder.

  
_who is this?_ Nolan asks.

  
The next selfie is of Taylor Hall himself, and a still very asleep Nico.

  
**one a.m. patrick.**

**one.**

  
Nolan sends him a thumbs up emoji, and adds him to his contacts, but how do you tell Taylor Hall that his own rookie is the one pushing their conversation to quarter to three almost every morning.

  
  
**I** is for ice, the main component to the sport that brought the two of them together. Sometimes when Nolan comes home, missing his family, sore from a hard hit taken during the game he thinks about how much he hates the sport.

  
Later Nico will call him, and he’ll go off on a tangent about something ridiculous Miles did that day, laughing loud until Nolan is laughing with him. He’ll ask how Nolan is doing, and Nolan will realize he’s doing a lot better, and that he no longer holds any resentment towards hockey. The sport is back to talking it’s place as the third thing he loves, coming behind family, and Nico—who gets his own category.

  
When the time comes, Nolan will take Nico home for Christmas, and over the break they will head to the outdoor rink Nolan grew up playing on, every weekend during the winter months. Some kids from the neighbourhood will skate circles around them, while Nolan stick handles through Nico’s legs, his boyfriend looking on in admiration. That night, they’ll lay in bed together and Nico will thank him for bringing him home, and for showing him where Nolan Patrick truly got his start. Before his cheeks can redden more, Nolan will kiss him quiet, letting out a silent thank you to all the ice in the world for bringing him the love of his life.

 

  
**N** is for Nolan’s neck, covered in marks they had both thought would fade sooner.

  
The number wasn’t supposed to escalate so high, but to be fair they hadn’t seen each other in too long. With Nico in his lap, Nolan’s hands on the other’s hips, time just seemed to fly away. He deals with the consequences now as the chirping is relentless.

  
“Doesn’t the Devils’ superstar have anything better to do than mark up our rookies?” Claude asks.

  
Nolan flushes and pulls his under armour on quickly. If this is what they say about his neck, he wonders what they’ll say about all the marks further down.

  
(Nico thinks it’s hilarious, because of course he does.

  
Nolan demands he e-transfers back all the money he’s losing for these fines.

  
He wakes up the next morning, $13 dollars richer, with a little ‘ **< 3**’ included with the money).

   
  
**E** is for the echo Nolan hears in his ears the first time Nico tells him he loves him.  

  
“I know it’s soon,” he says. “But I’ve never been so sure about anything else besides hockey.”

  
Nolan tells him he’s got another call and hangs up. Who else would be calling him at midnight?

  
Nico waits, of course he does, and when Nolan calls him three days later to apologize. Nico is assuring as always.

  
“You don’t have to say it back,” he clarifies, “I just wanted to make sure you knew you’re loved, and that I’ll always be here for you.”

  
They move onto different topics after that, and neither of them brings it up for a few weeks, not until Nolan’s with Nico a day before he’s set to head off on a road trip.  
He says it into Nico’s clavicle, and Nico pauses, pulling back.

  
“You don’t have to say it back, Nol,” he says.

  
Nolan shakes his head.

  
“I do,” he says. “I do, because I mean it. You’re so incredible, it scares me, I never thought I’d be good enough for you, and then you tell me you love me, and that’s a lot.”

  
Nico opens his mouth, but Nolan continues on before he can speak.

  
“I’m in love with you, Nico, it took a lot for me to let my guard down, but you stuck by the whole way. You were there the whole time and I can never thank you enough for letting me take my time. I love you for who you are, and who you’re shaping me to be.”

  
When he looks at Nico again, Nico’s wearing a blinding smile.

  
“I think I fell in love with you the day we met,” he says, pulling up Nolan’s hand to intertwine their fingers. “I’m just really glad I have someone incredible like you to take this journey on with. And if it takes me forever to convince you of what an amazing and incredible person you are, forever it’ll be.”

   
  
**S** is for safe in Nolan’s bed. It’s nice when they play together, even if on opposing sides, and it’s even nicer when one of them can stay the night.

  
Tonight they’re curled up, skin against skin, while Friends plays on Nolan’s forgotten laptop further down the bed.

  
Nico spends his time tracing the tattoos on Nolan’s bicep, while Nolan keeps his other hand in Nico’s hair.

  
There’s no loud crowd, no heavy heartbeats, it’s just the two of them and Nolan wants to stay in this moment for the rest of his life.

  
Nico makes a noise, which pulls Nolan back to the situation.

  
“Hmm?”

  
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he repeats.

  
Nolan makes a face and turns over to grab his phone, and sure enough, 12:01, February 14th.

  
“I forgot to get you something,” Nolan says.

  
Nico laughs, and the vibration hums against Nolan’s chest.

  
“It’s alright,” Nico says. “I didn’t start dating you ‘cause you were a romantic.”

  
Nolan scoffs and Nico laughs again.

  
“Of course, you’re only in it for the rock hard abs.”

  
“And the flow,” Nico says, pushing his hand back through Nolan’s hair, letting his arms wrap loosely around his neck.

  
“And the flow,” Nolan repeats.

  
Nico smiles again and presses an easy kiss to Nolan’s lips.

  
Nolan smiles back which makes it more teeth on teeth than anything.

  
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Nico,” he says, before heading back in to deepen the kiss, because fuck it, they’re teenagers, and they’ve got plenty more Valentine’s Days to come.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading (´▽`ʃƪ)♡  
> happy valentine's day n stuff


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